Insatiable (Steel Brothers Saga #12) - Helen Hardt Page 0,48
Cade Booker was indeed a bastard, Joe and I had something to do with it.
We’d taken him camping. We’d given my father access to him.
“Don’t do this to yourself.” Marjorie rubbed my forearm. “This isn’t your fault. You’re not the one who sold your son.”
Just the thought made anger rage within me. I was a father, for God’s sake, and I’d do anything—anything—to protect my son. This motherfucker, this Bertram Valente.
Still, if we hadn’t taken Justin camping…
“Please. Stop,” Marjorie said softly.
The others were talking, but the words jumbled in my head. Only the warmth of Marjorie’s hand helped keep me sane.
Because I knew the truth.
This was our fault. Joe’s and mine, and more mine, because my father had taken us camping. We’d had no intention to harm him, but that didn’t negate the fact that, but for us, my father would have never known Justin Valente.
Justin hadn’t died after all, and his father had given him up and been quieted by my father’s money.
Then what had happened? So far, we knew only that he’d “returned” after his mother had remarried Richard Booker and Dominic and Alessandra were in their teens. He changed his name to Cade and took the last name Booker. Had he truly trained with the FBI? That could have been totally fabricated. My father could have taught him to handle weapons as well or better than the FBI. Cade’s law degree could be fabricated, as well.
Where had he been during those lost years? Dominic was twenty-four now and had been sixteen when Cade returned. That was only eight years ago.
We knew absolutely nothing.
“…probably trained as a slave,” Ruby was saying. “That’s what they did to the rest of the kids. Those who were trouble were killed, and some probably died from the training. Whatever happened to Cade, we know he didn’t die.”
I eyed Joe. He shook his head at me slightly.
I suppressed the bit of anger that threatened to emerge. I’d never spill the beans about the leather club. But Cade knew who Joe was. He’d clearly been watching Joe through the club, and the rest of us through… I didn’t know. Dominic had said his brother was obsessed with the Steels and with my father.
My father was now dead, and I was the substitute. Or perhaps I’d never been the substitute. After all, I was the one who’d invited him camping.
Marjorie’s hand never left my arm, though she did join in the conversation.
“Alex was a lot more hotheaded than Dominic,” she said. “She didn’t have a lot of patience with Colin or me, didn’t seem to understand that we didn’t like being taken against our will, and if we didn’t want her protection, we could just leave. She even said she wanted to crush my skull at one point.”
I’ll crush your damned skull.
I moved my arm from her touch. “Say that again.”
“What? Alex didn’t have any patience.”
“No. The last thing. She said she wanted to crush your skull?”
This time Joe took note as well, his brow rising.
“Yeah. I think those are the words she used. Big deal. She thought she was tougher than she was.”
“It is a big deal,” I said. “Joe and I used to use that phrase when we were kids, didn’t we?”
Joe nodded. “And we must have heard it somewhere.”
“Not from here,” Talon said. “I don’t remember Dad ever saying it, and I didn’t even hear that in the military—and believe me, I heard a lot of shit there I don’t want to repeat.”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t remember”—true—“but we must have heard it from my father.”
“And Alex probably heard it from Cade,” Joe said, “who probably heard it from…”
“My father,” I mumbled.
Marjorie lifted her hand to touch my forearm once more, but I moved it away from her. I didn’t want comfort at the moment.
I didn’t deserve it.
“Not your fault,” she mouthed.
She was right.
I’d been nine years old. Nine fucking years old.
“You guys are missing something really important here,” Jade was saying. “Cade may have been abused, but he got away.”
“He’s a mess, though,” Ryan said.
“But he’s alive. He didn’t die there, wherever there was. He just needs help.”
“He’s not the one who kidnapped Mom and me,” Marjorie said. “That was his half brother and sister.” She held up her hand. “I know. You’re going to say—if Dominic is to be believed—that he did it for our protection. Protection from Cade. But the reality of the situation is that Cade didn’t do anything to us.”